The Eastern Orthodox Church generally uses the Septuagint--however, it may interest you to know that still to this very day, there is technically NOT a single authoritive Canon in the Orthodox Church stating which books are and are not Scriptures. It's just generally a consensus. The belief that Nicea I formulated an authoritive Scripture Canon is actually a myth. What did come from Nicea I though was the first fully complete documents of what we now recognize as the Bible--these were the 50 Bibles of Constantinople. However, as to whether there was any Canonizing process involved, there is nothing to suggest so.

I don't know about the Roman Catholic Scripture

As for Protestants, they have different Scriptures than us because they use the Masoretic text and because the Reformers took books out of the Bible that they didn't like.

The Eastern Orthodox Church generally uses the Septuagint--however, it may interest you to know that still to this very day, there is technically NOT a single authoritive Canon in the Orthodox Church stating which books are and are not Scriptures. It's just generally a consensus. The belief that Nicea I formulated an authoritive Scripture Canon is actually a myth. What did come from Nicea I though was the first fully complete documents of what we now recognize as the Bible--these were the 50 Bibles of Constantinople. However, as to whether there was any Canonizing process involved, there is nothing to suggest so.

I don't know about the Roman Catholic Scripture

As for Protestants, they have different Scriptures than us because they use the Masoretic text and because the Reformers took books out of the Bible that they didn't like.

The Eastern Orthodox Church generally uses the Septuagint--however, it may interest you to know that still to this very day, there is technically NOT a single authoritive Canon in the Orthodox Church stating which books are and are not Scriptures. It's just generally a consensus. The belief that Nicea I formulated an authoritive Scripture Canon is actually a myth. What did come from Nicea I though was the first fully complete documents of what we now recognize as the Bible--these were the 50 Bibles of Constantinople. However, as to whether there was any Canonizing process involved, there is nothing to suggest so.

I don't know about the Roman Catholic Scripture

As for Protestants, they have different Scriptures than us because they use the Masoretic text and because the Reformers took books out of the Bible that they didn't like.

Which Scriptures did Martin Luther take away during the reformation?

Tobit, Judith, 1st + 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom of Sirach, Baruch along with a few parts of Daniel. He also wanted to take James out of the New Testament but didn't because his followers didn't allow him to go that far. But to this very day, the epistle of James is still at the very back of the Lutheran Bible.

The Eastern Orthodox Church generally uses the Septuagint--however, it may interest you to know that still to this very day, there is technically NOT a single authoritive Canon in the Orthodox Church stating which books are and are not Scriptures. It's just generally a consensus. The belief that Nicea I formulated an authoritive Scripture Canon is actually a myth. What did come from Nicea I though was the first fully complete documents of what we now recognize as the Bible--these were the 50 Bibles of Constantinople. However, as to whether there was any Canonizing process involved, there is nothing to suggest so.

I don't know about the Roman Catholic Scripture

As for Protestants, they have different Scriptures than us because they use the Masoretic text and because the Reformers took books out of the Bible that they didn't like.

Which Scriptures did Martin Luther take away during the reformation?

Tobit, Judith, 1st + 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom of Sirach, Baruch along with a few parts of Daniel. He also wanted to take James out of the New Testament but didn't because his followers didn't allow him to go that far. But to this very day, the epistle of James is still at the very back of the Lutheran Bible.

I've heard the reformers have taken away some parts from book of Denial and Book of Esther. Can I see what these parts are and what these verses talk about?How do these parts/verses contradict with the doctrine of Luther or Protestant?

Does the Masoretic text have those verses which the reformers took away from Book of Daniel and Esther?

I've heard the reformers have taken away some parts from book of Denial and Book of Esther. Can I see what these parts are and what these verses talk about?How do these parts/verses contradict with the doctrine of Luther or Protestant?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

Sometime in the first millenium AD--years after Christianity and Judaism separated.

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Why do Masoretic texts have less authority than Septuagint?

Because the Masoretic text was created by Jews years after Judaism and Christianity had separated. A decisions made by Jews should have no bearing on the Church, and likewise, the Church had already been using the Septuagint years before the Masoretic text existed.

Why do Orthodoxy,Catholic and protestant have different canonical scriptures?

New Testament was generally solidifed by early 5th century (not St. Athanasius). The debates about the Old Testament canon largely fell into silence, but that doesn't mean everyone agreed. Catholics dogmafied things at Trent, and Protestants also solidified their entire canon into 66 books at roughly the same time. The Orthodox have never had one single canon, and never will most likely.

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"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

The Eastern Orthodox Church generally uses the Septuagint--however, it may interest you to know that still to this very day, there is technically NOT a single authoritive Canon in the Orthodox Church stating which books are and are not Scriptures. It's just generally a consensus. The belief that Nicea I formulated an authoritive Scripture Canon is actually a myth. What did come from Nicea I though was the first fully complete documents of what we now recognize as the Bible--these were the 50 Bibles of Constantinople. However, as to whether there was any Canonizing process involved, there is nothing to suggest so.

I don't know about the Roman Catholic Scripture

As for Protestants, they have different Scriptures than us because they use the Masoretic text and because the Reformers took books out of the Bible that they didn't like.

Which Scriptures did Martin Luther take away during the reformation?

Tobit, Judith, 1st + 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom of Sirach, Baruch along with a few parts of Daniel. He also wanted to take James out of the New Testament but didn't because his followers didn't allow him to go that far. But to this very day, the epistle of James is still at the very back of the Lutheran Bible.

I have a Lutheran Bible, in German, Martin Luther translation, and printed in 1801. It has all of the books you mention, and James is right where it is supposed to be. Luther did not translate the "Apocrypha", but had Philip Melanchthon do it. So, you may be correct to say that Luther's Bible did not have these books, but a good many "Lutheran" Bibles after Luther sure did.

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I would be happy to agree with you, but then both of us would be wrong.

Well, my guess would be that since this is an ORTHODOX forum, the ORTHODOX version would be from God. It would make sense that if the Protestants and Roman Catholics had Scriptures that were from God (or at least if they understood them), they would be Orthodox.

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I would be happy to agree with you, but then both of us would be wrong.

The Tankh (sp?) is basically just the Jewish name for what we as Christians would call the Old Testament. Now, as to which Old Testament the Jews use--the Septuagint or the Masoretic--they use both depending on the region. To this day, there still is technically not an official Jewish Canon of the Old Testament. Some Jews in the western world use the Tankh whereas some Jews in places like Ethiopia still use the Septuagint.

I have just realized the 39 canonical Old Testament in protestant /Takakh is recognized by the religious council of Judaism around A.D 100. At that time, Judaism had separated from Church for 70 years and cannot consider as God's Church anynmore.What Judaism did should have no influence on Church anymore.How come Protestant is so foolish and use the canonical Old Testament which is recognised by other religion which is outside the church?

And Quite a lot of Apocryphal were not recognized as Canonical scripture by Judaism in that council simply because they could not found any Herbrew copy at that time. But after the discovery of Dead Sea Scroll, many Apocryphal can have Hebrew copy nowadays. Should Protestant put those Apocryphal back to their bible and consider them as part of Canonical Scriptures now?

While I'm sure various councils took place, the infamous Council of Jamnia is, itself, largely apocryphal.

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"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

An interesting aside--even Fathers who used/favored the Septuagint had this interesting custom of limiting the books in their old testament canon to 22 because that's how many letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. Sts. Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, and John of Damascus all did this.

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"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

An interesting aside--even Fathers who used/favored the Septuagint had this interesting custom of limiting the books in their old testament canon to 22 because that's how many letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. Sts. Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, and John of Damascus all did this.

After the discovery of Dead Scroll Sea, nearly all Apocryphal can have Hebrew copy . Such way of deciding which Scriptures is canonical should not be applicable anymore nowadays.

"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

An interesting aside--even Fathers who used/favored the Septuagint had this interesting custom of limiting the books in their old testament canon to 22 because that's how many letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet. Sts. Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, and John of Damascus all did this.

I'm not sure why they did so in many cases, they didn't really elaborate much. Here are some quotes...

"There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews..." - St. Athanasius

"But it should be known that there are twenty-two canonical books, according to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet." - Origen

"Observe, further, that there are two and twenty books of the Old Testament, one for each letter of the Hebrew tongue. For there are twenty-two letters of which five are double, and so they come to be twenty-seven. For the letters Caph, Mere, Nun, Pe, Sade are double. And thus the number of the books in this way is twenty-two, but is found to be twenty-seven because of the double character of five. For Ruth is joined on to Judges, and the Hebrews count them one book: the first and second books of Kings are counted one: and so are the third and fourth books of Kings: and also the first and second of Paraleipomena: and the first and second of Esdra. In this way, then, the books are collected together in four Pentateuchs and two others remain over, to form thus the canonical books." - St. John of Damascus

"I count therefore, twenty-two of the ancient books, corresponding to the number of the Hebrew letters." - St. Gregory the Theologian

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"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

To be honest, besides prayer to/for the dead, I'm not sure how important they are doctrinally. And even that one can be shown from other Scriptural passages.

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"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

I'm not sure why they did so in many cases, they didn't really elaborate much. Here are some quotes...

"There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews..." - St. Athanasius

"But it should be known that there are twenty-two canonical books, according to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet." - Origen

"Observe, further, that there are two and twenty books of the Old Testament, one for each letter of the Hebrew tongue. For there are twenty-two letters of which five are double, and so they come to be twenty-seven. For the letters Caph, Mere, Nun, Pe, Sade are double. And thus the number of the books in this way is twenty-two, but is found to be twenty-seven because of the double character of five. For Ruth is joined on to Judges, and the Hebrews count them one book: the first and second books of Kings are counted one: and so are the third and fourth books of Kings: and also the first and second of Paraleipomena: and the first and second of Esdra. In this way, then, the books are collected together in four Pentateuchs and two others remain over, to form thus the canonical books." - St. John of Damascus

"I count therefore, twenty-two of the ancient books, corresponding to the number of the Hebrew letters." - St. Gregory the Theologian

What should also be mentioned, though, is that figures like St. Athanasius also accepted the so-called Apocrypha as books 'worthy to be read' - i.e. authoritative books which could be read liturgically in church as scripture. The term 'Deuterocanon' describes the status of these books quite aptly. I suppose the more correct way of putting it is that the Orthodox Church accepts two forms of Old Testament canon, one smaller (the 22 Jewish books, normally numbered as 39) and one larger.

True, St. Athanasius did mention a couple deuterocanonical books as being readable/edifying (and also excluded Esther). Then again St. Athanasius quoted certain deuterocanonical books as "Scripture," though at least some of the time he didn't seem to realise what he was quoting. If only he'd had Bible software!

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"Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the disorders of the soul as incurable? ...For even if thou shouldst despair of thyself ten thousand times, I will never despair of thee" - St. John Chrysostom

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.

It should also be mentioned that the Septuagint is the oldest complete set of Scriptures that we got, whereas even the Dead Sea Scrolls are not even that old but were made sometime within the 1st century AD. Also, the concept that the Jews had a big Council of Javneh is somewhat speculative at best, because there is no single Jewish canon of Scripture.

1. One reason there is no absolutely definitive Eastern canon of Scripture is that in our history there has never been any serious challenge to those books traditionally received as Scripture in the Church. One normally only sees canons (rules/guidance) as part of the work of a council called to settle some issue disturbing the Church. Where there is no disturbance there is no council and thus no canons as such.

2. The Orthodox understanding, use, and treatment of the Scriptures is significantly different in a number of respects from western confessions. There is much less "The Book" consciousness. It is not an independent Oracle of the things of God but finds its primary use in the context of the worship of the Church. Its books by in large are meant to be encountered within the liturgical context of the Church, and only secondarily as a body of work to read for spiritual study and private piety. It is the advent to the printing press that has perhaps too much democratized the Scriptures so that their normative place in communal worship and teaching is obscured by easy private ownership.

3. On a related point the Orthodox Church does not completely separate various spiritual writings in the Church from the Scriptures. It is true that the Scriptures stand at the pinnacle of Christian writings but they do not float like a flying mountain in the sky apart from all the writings of the Saints and fathers that came later. Rather it is all a continuum from the valuable spiritual literature of the present time all the way back to the Gospels which stand highest of all (so far as I know). It is all the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the Church. And just like the Scriptures we depend upon the Tradition, the counsel of Saints and the holy ones among us, those with the grace to teach and break the bread of knowledge and wisdom to help us understand and apply those works of faith that are near to our own time as well as those more distant. The mind of Christ in the Church guides us all.

4. Thus questions of canonicity of Scripture in the East resonate quite differently than they do in the West.

The Tankh (sp?) is basically just the Jewish name for what we as Christians would call the Old Testament. Now, as to which Old Testament the Jews use--the Septuagint or the Masoretic--they use both depending on the region. To this day, there still is technically not an official Jewish Canon of the Old Testament. Some Jews in the western world use the Tankh whereas some Jews in places like Ethiopia still use the Septuagint.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who can watch the watchmen?"No one is paying attention to your post reports"Why do posters that claim to have me blocked keep sending me pms and responding to my posts? That makes no sense.